Kate

A reader writes:

I wanted to share this amazing question I got from my boss’ boss not too long ago because it stopped me in my tracks, it was so good and helpful.

Setting the scene: My boss Perfuma was enjoying some much-deserved time off for a few days, and we ran into a tricky situation with a handful of customers in a public setting who were upset about how we were advertising our, let’s say, unicorn grooming. I let Perfuma’s boss Glimmer know, and after a little back and forth with some other teams, Glimmer sent me this message:

“About the messy unicorn responses, I don’t want to be prescriptive toward you and the Unicorn Response Team, because I believe you know best in many instances like this. So before moving forward with a plan, I’d like your perspective on two things:
• What do you think Perfuma would recommend in this situation?
• Do you have a different or additional recommendation?”

I have a really great relationship with Perfuma, but we do have dissimilar communication styles and tend to word things differently, given free rein. This is well-known and something of a running joke on the team. So I had to consider how Perfuma would soften the language and touch on broader ideas, as well as how I would focus on facts and transparency.

Anyhow, maybe this isn’t rocket science, but it really impressed me in the moment and helped me organize my thinking a lot. (I think it would have worked if Perfuma and I were peers and Glimmer was our supervisor as well.) I know you get a lot of letters about awful management, I just wanted to share this example where someone really nailed it. Maybe it’ll be helpful to someone in a similar spot!

Yes, this is excellent! In addition to what you noted, it also does all of the following:

* expresses confidence in your and your team’s expertise, rather than being heavy-handed

* bakes in respect for Perfuma’s role as the team’s leader

* makes it clear that she knows your perspective may be different than your management’s and she wants to hear that if so (which is not always clear to people several layers down, and is a signal that can meaningfully affect things beyond this one interaction)

* is perfectly calibrated to make you feel respected and valued

It’s a great approach.

my boss’s boss asked me a fantastic question was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question:

I work for a multinational company. Normally at the end of the year, various geographic offices would have holiday parties/dinners. Obviously this won’t happen this year due to the plague. One of our teams in the UK is investigating online escape rooms, which sounds fun! But are there other ideas people would suggest?

Readers, how are your offices handling the holidays this year? Has anyone found a fun way to celebrate without being in-person?

(Note: I know some folks hate holiday parties even during normal years. For this post, I’m asking that we stay focused on ideas for offices that do want to do something.)

what do we do about end-of-year celebrations during the pandemic? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I graduated from college about two and a half years ago, and have worked at least part time in my field for closer to five years (but have been a full time employee since graduating). I used to have very high career aspirations for myself and always imagined I would be a VP or C-level executive.

I am not sure if it’s the crushing weight of this year, if I am having a reality check on what’s important in life, or something else entirely, but I find myself with little to no career ambition aside from just making a living. I could maybe see myself moving into a managerial role at some point (I currently perform as an informal team lead on several projects and enjoy this aspect of my job), but I truly just don’t have an interest in getting a bigger workload and more responsibility that could potentially take me away from my personal life at the moment. I do want to add that I generally like my job, I have a great team and receive good feedback on my work, and I realize how incredibly lucky I have been in terms of employment this year.

However, in the past months in quarantine, I have found tremendous value added to my life when I’m not working (i.e., nights and weekends) so I can unplug and cook/bake, focus on personal relationships, or work on home improvement projects. Spending the majority of my days in front of my computer feels more and more like I’m wasting my time, and honestly sometimes leaves me feeling resentful. I feel like I might be burnt out, but I am lucky in that my job allows me to completely unplug after work hours (including hard stops in the afternoon), so I’m not constantly surrounded by it. I also am taking some PTO around the holidays for extra time to unwind.

I guess my question here is, should I push myself to pursue the career I once dreamed about? Sometimes I worry that I will regret not achieving my previous career goals (especially since I’m still relatively new to the workforce), but I just don’t seem to have the will to do so anymore.

I don’t think you can conclude anything long-term from this year.

We’re in a highly stressful crisis! Nothing is normal. For lots of us, life as we knew it changed in a matter of days or weeks. We’re separated from family and friends, our safety nets feel far more tenuous, we’ve had to second-guess things we always took for granted (like our ability to get toilet paper), routine encounters have become risky, people are dying needlessly, and in many ways it feels as though we’re living through a slow-motion apocalypse.

Those aren’t optimal conditions for making long-term career decisions.

Or, maybe they are. Maybe with all of that false security stripped away (because it always was false, to some degree), it’s easier to see what matters. Maybe you’re getting a clearer look at what matters most to you, and how you do and don’t want to spend your time.

You don’t need to decide for sure right now. If you feel differently in a year or two or five, you can adjust course then. But don’t push yourself to chase the dreams of old-you, when current-you wants different things. (You have to temper that with knowledge of yourself, of course. If current-you always wishes that yesterday-you had made different choices, you should pay attention to that. But when current-you has been pretty consistent in your values for months on end, that’s pretty reliable info.)

If you had sent me this letter and we were not in a pandemic, I might have suggested that your shift in thinking could simply be a response to having been out of school for a couple of years and learning more about what you do and don’t value at work — something that can be hard to predict with certainty before you’re working full-time — or that it could be worth exploring other companies in your field before concluding anything for sure.

But right now? There’s such an obvious explanation for wanting a lower-pressure job at the moment that I wouldn’t really conclude much about what it means for you long-term. Cut yourself some slack for now, keep finding joy where you’re finding it, and trust yourself to adjust down the road if what you want shifts.

If you’re worried about making decisions now that would cut off that option for you later: You’re probably not going to. You’re not talking about quitting your job in spectacular fashion or letting your work performance lapse in ways that could harm you later. You’re just talking about not pushing yourself to be super driven during a hellish year, and that’s very unlikely to close off the options available to you later. Lots of people have slow starts professionally and are very successful later — and you’re not even talking about a slow start. You’re just talking about giving yourself room to hear and adjust to what you really want. That’s a smart thing, not a reckless one.

am I going to regret not pursuing a more high-powered career? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Is it okay to give people a heads-up before a colleague is fired?

I am working with HR to let someone go. The person is directly involved in a number of active cross-functional projects.

Typically terminations in our organization are communicated post-event, but I feel a bit like I will be blindsiding several team members. The termination shouldn’t be a major surprise as this individual has had performance issues, including interpersonal issues.

Would you ever recommend giving select team members — potentially managers and project managers — a heads-up that this event is coming so they can somewhat prepare? I thought about communicating it vaguely, e.g. “change is coming that may affect this project,” but that would just create more confusion and paranoia. Or, do I just sit tight and deal with the teams after the deed is done?

As long as you trust the people you’re talking with to be discreet and not share what you tell them with others, you should be able to give a confidential heads-up to managers and project managers when there’s a real need to know. I’d try to avoid sharing it with peers of the person but sometimes it’s unavoidable, depending on the details of the situation — but keep the number of people you discuss it with to a minimum and on a truly need-to-know basis. And ideally this heads-up would be within days of the firing happening — you don’t want colleagues knowing for weeks when that person doesn’t know themselves. (And really, once you know for sure you’ll be letting someone go, you should do it quickly anyway, not let it drag out.)

2. Telling your boss he’s unapproachable

Due to COVID, our company had to lay off some people, and re-org those remaining. I was on a team that got re-orged; as a result, another teammate and I were split from our really great manager, Tom, and given to a totally new one who is the polar opposite personality-wise, Brad. While Tom was very warm, supportive, and easy to talk with, Brad has an overall demeanor that is best described as very serious/intense bordering on cold. He’s not a malicious person, but he’s not someone you ever feel comfortable around. I’m always relieved when our one-on-ones are over.

I have occasional skip-level meetings with his boss and indicated that I found Brad to be rather unapproachable. Next thing I knew, in my next one-on-one with Brad, he asked me point-blank if I found him unapproachable or difficult to bring issues to (the answers being “yes” and “yes”). I was so uncomfortable and basically stuttered for a bit until he moved on. I’m also irritated that his boss clearly told Brad I’d said this. I never specifically said it should be confidential but I guess I assumed that was common sense to at least anonymize the feedback or something.

I’m struggling with how to approach this. I am usually a fairly forthcoming employee overall, and am comfortable giving more concrete feedback like “When you changed that deadline to X, it made it harder for me to do Y” or whatever. But this feels more personal, like attacking the person instead of the work. How do you give actionable feedback on soft skills? Also, is this even my job to deliver it?

Nah, it’s not your job to tell an unapproachable manager that you find them unapproachable. It’s useful if you can, but it’s also the kind of feedback that his own manager should be delivering, and without pinning it on specific people. So his boss messed this up.

Now that it’s out there, though, it might be useful to revisit it in a future one-on-one and say something like, “You asked me earlier about whether I found you hard to bring issues to. I was caught off-guard when you asked, but having had some time to think it over, I do find it difficult to raise some things with you because ____. I feel awkward giving that feedback, but I also didn’t want to ignore the question since you’d asked about it.” Obviously, temper this advice with what you know of Brad; if you think he’d react badly, skip it. But there can be value in having this kind of open discussion if you’re up for it and don’t think you’ll be penalized in some way. And some managers who fit Brad’s description genuinely don’t know they’re putting people off and can become better managers from hearing it. But again, it’s not your job if you’d rather not take it on.

3. In which I am stumped

I’m a newly-promoted manager (yay!), and AAM has been a great resource for me during the last couple months of learning to manage. Lately, I often find myself thinking up resolutions to various scenarios so I can try to be prepared in unexpected or outlandish situations. I’m interested in your take on how to professionally handle something that’s stumped me.

A few jobs ago, I had a coworker with severe priapism (persistent erections not caused by sexual stimulation). He always carried a doctor’s note with him and was extremely open about his condition; usually whenever we had a new hire, he’d take that person aside and explain that if they ever noticed anything, it wasn’t personal. It was a very small company, and since he was a genuinely nice guy, there was never any trouble there.

But it got me thinking on how to navigate something like that if someone with this condition wanted to keep their health private (as would be their right), and a coworker complained of sexual harassment. What could be done then?

Wow, I have no idea! You’ve stumped me. If I were the employer in this situation, I’d consult with a lawyer. But I’d imagine it’s easier to handle it internally within an office; it would be much harder more difficult if the person had a job that required him to deal with various members of the public on a regular basis.

4. Application systems that won’t accept a cover letter

I know the importance of cover letters from your blog, and also because for me in particular, I have a wide variety of experience and it helps me explain which aspects are aligned with the job I’m applying for. However, I recently applied for a job at a major media organization, and the online application system didn’t seem to have a way to attach a cover letter. There was only space for one file (resume), and I kept thinking throughout the process that there might be a place at the end to attach more documents, but of course, you don’t know that for sure until you’ve completed the entire application process. I even paged back through to see if I missed something – I didn’t.

Is this some kind of new normal? If so, and sometimes you don’t get to submit a cover letter (but you don’t actually know that you won’t be submitting one until you’ve completed the process), how do I explain how my experience aligns with the particular job I’m applying for? I thought about PDFing the cover letter and resume together and attaching that as my file, but the system parses your resume into individual jobs. Also, if you later apply for a different job at the same organization, the cover letter would be wrong since it would be for the first job you applied for.

It’s not really a new normal; there have always been employers who just don’t care about cover letters and don’t set up their systems to invite them.

Sometimes when this happens, you can just include a cover letter in the same PDF as your resume, and that’s the best way to handle it. But when there’s no way to do that, that’s a clear sign that this employer doesn’t want cover letters — and if that’s the case, you’ve just got to work with that. It does mean you won’t be able to explain the things a cover letter would let you elaborate on, but that’s the weird choice those employers are making. (I say weird, but certainly some managers simply don’t care about cover letters. I think that’s a mistake for most jobs, but they’re out there.)

5. Can I tell interviewers I’m leaving my job because of how they’ve handled Covid?

Part of the reason I’m job searching is that my management team is getting very antsy about getting us all back in the office. Our CEO is old school and hated the idea of letting us work from home to begin with.

In the event a hiring manager asks my reason for leaving, is this a bad answer? In general, I try to avoid badmouthing any of my previous employers in response to this question. Is there a good way to answer the question to this effect? I imagine discussion of precautions going into a new job is inevitable, but I’m concerned about framing that conversation coming from this angle.

I wouldn’t get into all the details (like that the CEO is old school or hated remote work — ultimately that stuff isn’t the point) but it’s fine to say something like, “My office is reopening faster than I think is safe for our area, and I’m looking at employers that are taking a different approach to the pandemic.” Of course, that will likely screen out employers that are doing the same thing as your current one — but you presumably want to do that anyway.

giving people a heads-up before a coworker is fired, telling your boss he’s unapproachable, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

For a Better Morning, Do This One Thing.

A little thing I’ve been trying out over the past week:

Right when I wake up in the morning, I get out of bed and set a timer for thirty minutes. And for those thirty minutes, I am not allowed to look at my phone. My friend Emily mentioned this at dinner last week, saying “you’re most vulnerable first thing in the morning.” This isn’t anything new. But it’s new for COVID and quarantine where all good habits and boundaries seem to have gone out the window.

I have to tell you… it’s really nice! Something I didn’t anticipate is that it actually makes me look forward to waking up as I’m not just hopping into work right away like I have been this year…. digging into my emails or DMs right away. I sit down, I enjoy the quiet of my apartment, write in my journal (here are some great journaling prompts), I stretch, make my coffee, then maybe put on some good music… And I love it. Besides setting the tone for the day, it feels good doing something for me and just being, as opposed to immediately being inundated with all. of. the. things.

Do you do this? Would love to hear your morning rituals!

photo by Allie Provost.

The post For a Better Morning, Do This One Thing. appeared first on The Stripe.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker had an affair with my boyfriend

I became very close friends with a coworker. We work extremely closely, every single day, and that moved into a friendship outside of work too. In the spring, I found out that she had been seeing my long-term boyfriend behind my back (and the back of her fiance). Needless to say, working with her has been difficult, but I’ve done my best to remain professional and be as nice as possible, despite how hard it’s been. However, now my coworker’s work ethic is declining. Most people don’t know the full story and just think she’s going through a hard time because her wedding got called off. But now I’m picking up the slack and I’m not sure how to bring this up to our boss without it sounding like a personal vendetta.

The lowest-key option is just to set boundaries on picking up her slack in the same way you would do without the personal history if you didn’t have room to take on her work. But if you can’t feasibly do that — because your manager knows you have time to help, or because she’ll tell you to reprioritize to make room for it, or so forth — then it might indeed make sense to have a discreet conversation with your boss about the situation. It’s not about having a personal vendetta; it’s about giving her context so she understands a highly relevant dynamic on her team right now.

I’d say it this way: “I feel incredibly awkward sharing this with you and it’s not something I’d normally bring up, but asking me to help Jane with her work is putting me in an uncomfortable spot. I learned earlier this year that she was having an affair with my partner behind my back. I’ve made a point of staying professional at work, but I’d strongly prefer not to be asked to help with her projects if we can avoid that.”

2. Is it a problem to provide only positive feedback to my employee?

I’m new to managing and have a non-problem problem. I have a truly excellent employee on my team, “Dave.” He is bright, diligent, always volunteers for extra tasks and responsibility, and his work product is very high quality. I’m going to need to provide an annual review of Dave soon and I feel like I owe him more than “you’re doing everything perfectly, keep up the good work.”

I worry that 1) endless praise may seem disingenuous, 2) it might appear to Dave that I‘m not invested in coming up with ways to meaningfully coach him/help him improve, and 3) it could come off to my bosses that, as a new manager, I am naive about Dave’s abilities and am not evaluating critically enough. I’ll add that Dave and I were also coworkers/casual friends before I got promoted (though I think we’ve very successfully navigated into a manger/employee relationship and I don’t think this is coloring my view of his objectively excellent work). Dave really is an exceptional team member; am I overthinking? Is it ever a bad thing to only provide positive feedback?

Well, you want your feedback to accurately reflect Dave’s work, which sounds excellent. You can certainly bounce this off your boss and ask if jibes with her assessment as well (if she knows his work well enough to comment), but some people are just excellent at what they do! It’s not going to seem disingenuous as long as you’re nuanced and specific about why his work is so good.

However, feedback shouldn’t just be positive or negative; it should also be developmental, meaning feedback on how the person can go from good to even better. If Dave asked you for something he could work on to do an even better job in his role, what would you say? That’s worth reflecting on. Because you’re new to managing him, you might not have that perspective on his work yet, and that’s okay — but try to develop it as time goes on. Also, ask Dave where he wants to develop! What are his professional goals and how can you help him meet them?

You should also think about where you want to see Dave take the areas he’s responsible for in the future. Don’t just raise the bar for him because he’s so good, while not raising expectations for others doing similar work; you shouldn’t reward good work with a bigger pile of work. But in a lot of jobs, work goals always evolve year to year, and if this is one of those roles there are probably some really substantive conversations to have with him around what goals for his work should look like next year.

3. Family member died right before I started a new job

I just started a new job this week, after being unemployed since quarantine started. It’s a work from home position that pays very well, and I love the work. The only issue is that my grandmother died the day before I started. I’ve been trying to just act like nothing is happening, but it’s truly weighing on me. I’m not focused and am often having to turn off my microphone due to emotional moments. I feel like I should say something to my management team. I also don’t want to seem like I’m trying to cause problems or get sympathy when I’ve just barely started, and I don’t want pity from my coworkers either. I’m unsure how to proceed, or if I should say anything at all.

Let your boss know what’s going on! It’s not about asking for pity, just about providing helpful context. I’d want to know if my brand new employee was dealing with that on top of starting a new job! And if they do notice you seeming off in some way, it’s going to help for them to understand what might be happening.

It doesn’t have to be a big conversation, just something like, “I want to mention that I had a death in my family the day before I started, and I feel like I’m not as on my game as I ideally would be at a new job. I’m trying not to let it affect my focus, but I wanted to mention it just in case you noticed anything.”

(A good manager will likely ask if you need some time off, so think about whether you’d want that.)

I’m sorry about your grandma!

4. Should my resume include a part-time job outside my field?

My husband and I moved abroad from the states for his teaching career and plan to be here for a couple of years. I am looking forward to travel, so I am considering a part-time position vs a full-time position.

If I work part-time here, would I need to put that position on my resume once I go back stateside in a few years? I have a background in corporate banking and am not sure how a part-time position (entry level, non-industry related) would look to a potential future employer as the first thing on my resume. Do you advise leaving off part-time work?

You never need to put any particular position on your resume. You can leave things off if they don’t strengthen your candidacy overall.

But in general there’s no reason to exclude a job just because it was part-time. Part-time jobs warrant resume space just as much as full-time jobs! In this case, though, you might decide it doesn’t make sense to include it because it’s entry level (which I’m assuming you aren’t) and outside of your field. Or you might decide to briefly mention it so it’s clear what you’ve been doing during that time. Resume gaps aren’t the avoid-at-all-costs calamity that people sometimes worry they will be, but there can be value in showing you’ve stayed in the workforce. it’s really up to you though, and it depends on the specific factors you’re weighing with your specific resume.

5. Can I ask for detailed benefit info if I get a job offer?

I’m in final round interviews for a new job. I’m currently employed, but excited about the prospect of this new opportunity. However, I have really great benefits now (health insurance, 401k). If I’m offered the position, can I ask to see their benefit package in detail? Basically I want to compare it to what I have now, line by line. If I’m offered the job and choose not to accept because of the benefits or salary, is it appropriate to tell them that?

Absolutely, on both counts. It’s very normal to ask for details of the benefits package if an employer doesn’t offer it up on their own (although they often will). In fact, I’d recommend always asking to see it once you get an offer so you don’t have any unpleasant surprises once you start. And it’s perfectly fine to explain that you’re declining the job because of the salary or benefits, if that becomes the case. (It’s also genuinely useful feedback for them to hear — and can sometimes result in them sweetening the offer — so don’t be at all hesitant to say it.)

my coworker slept with my boyfriend, feedback for an excellent employee, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A couple years ago, Alex and I went out to dinner, and both of us couldn’t help but notice that the tiny restroom smelled ridiculously good.… Read more

The post The Best Smelling Candles We’ve Found appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

At the end of each year, I publish a slew of “where are they now” updates from people whose questions I answered here in the past. In past years we’ve had several hundred each December and it was amazing (and has let me take most of the month off, so thank you).

If you’ve had your question answered here in the past, please email me an update and let us know how your situation turned out. Did you take the advice? Did you not take the advice? What happened? How’s your situation now?  (Don’t post your updates here though; email them to me.)

Note: Your update doesn’t have to be positive or big to be worth submitting. We want to hear them all, even if you don’t think yours is that interesting.

And if there’s anyone you especially want to hear an update from, mention it here and I’ll reach out to those people directly.

where are you now? (a call for updates) was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) has shared the results of its annual report surveying the salaries of curators, conservators, registrars, and other museum professionals across North America. It’s the organization’s first report on the topic since a public Google spreadsheet of anonymous museum workers’ wages circulated through the art world, stirring a debate over the stratification of pay at non-profit institutions.  

The latest findings, made public today, reflect the 2019 fiscal year, providing a pre-lockdown snapshot of a period of “low unemployment, low interest rates, and yet also one of economic uncertainty and concern over the stagnation of wages,” according to AAMD’s announcement. It remains to be seen how lockdown—which, for many museums, came with significant budget and pay cuts as well as staff reductions—will affect wages.

On average, directors earned $317,500 per year, according to this year’s report. Both chief operating officers and deputy directors brought in $184,200, while chief curators ranked third, with an average salary of $150,200. On the low end, security officers earned roughly $35,700 and visitor services associates took in $32,600.

The most salary growth reported by museums was in the HR, IT, education, and facilities management divisions, while pay raises for finance, security, and fundraising lagged behind the national averages.

One hundred eighty-seven of the 220 museums surveyed this year—or 85 percent—submitted answers, making for a response rate markedly lower than that of previous years. (Response rates in each of the last three years have topped at least 92 percent, but many institutions were unable to gather data in time this year due to the shutdown.)     

AAMD inaugurated its salary survey in 1918 and has collected yearly data since 1991. Striving to promote transparency across the industry, the organization made public the results of its survey for the first time in 2017. The organization partnered with Stax Inc., a consulting and analytics firm, to collect the data.  

Below are median salary figures for all the job titles in the AAMD report, sorted from highest to lowest. (When titles are broken up into As and Bs, such as with “Finance A” and “Finance B,” the As are the position within a department with more responsibility.)

• Museum Directors: $317,500
• Deputy Director: $184,200
• Chief Operating Officer: $184,200
• Chief Curator / Director of Curatorial Affairs / Curator A: $150,200
• Director of Development / Development A: $146,600
• Director of Finance/Finance A: $139,100
• Director of External Affairs: $133,900
• Director of Information Systems / Chief Information Officer: $123,800
• Chief Conservator / Conservator A: $123,800
• Human Resources Director: $112,500
• Director, Planned Giving / Institutional Giving: $107,600
• Senior Curator / Curator of Special Collections Area / Curator B: $105,300
• Curator of Exhibitions / Curator C: $99,700
• Senior Conservator / Conservator B: $94,600
• Marketing Director: $91,300
• Director of Education / Curator of Education / Education A: $91,300
• Systems Manager / Technology Director / Director of New Media:  $91,200
• Director of Finance / Finance B: $87,000
• Facilities Director / Building Manager / Operations Manager: $86,700
• Engineering Manager: $85,900
• Editor / Director of Publications: $82,800
• Head Librarian / Librarian A: $78,700
• Grant Manager / Institutional Giving Manager / Development B: $77,400
• Chief of Security: $74,500
• Web Manager: $72,800
• Associate Curator / Curator D: $72,700
• Exhibition Designer: $72,400
• Public Relations Officer: $72,200
• Registrar A: $70,000
• Associate Conservator / Conservator C: $67,900
• Museum Store Manager: $67,200
• Special Events Manager:  $66,000
• Chief Preparator / Preparator A: $64,400
• Photographer: $62,700
• Assistant To Director:  $61,300
• Associate Librarian / Librarian B: $61,300
• Graphic Designer: $61,200
• Associate Educator / Educator B: $61,100
• Development Associate / Development C: $60,400
• Associate Registrar / Registrar B: $57,500
• Assistant Curator / Curator E: $57,200
• New Media Manager: $56,700
• Volunteer Coordinator: $51,100
• Associate Librarian / Librarian C: $50,500
• Associate Preparator / Preparator B: $48,600
• Assistant Registrar / Registrar C: $48,300 
• Assistant Educator / Educator C: $47,100
• Curator Assistant: $46,200
• Membership Assistant: $45,700
• Education Assistant:  $40,300
• Museum Security Officer / Museum Security Guard: $35,700
• Visitor Services Associate: $32,600

The post Looking for a Museum Career? Here’s How Much Money You Can Expect to Make, According to a New Survey appeared first on artnet News.

A reader writes:

Last year, I left on a leave of absence for a few months to take care of my elderly parents. Then I returned to work. Apparently during that time, one of my coworkers began telling people we were married … not as in “work wife,” as in legally married, and everyone believed him. Honestly, I had no idea he had any feelings for me and I don’t think he knew I would be coming back. I’m an introvert; I keep my personal life private and don’t talk about myself much, but the fact is, I have a husband (not him) who I’ve been married to for 10 years.

Not wanting to cause him embarrassment, I privately went to our boss, explained the situation behind closed doors, and asked for a department transfer. Even though he’s never sexually harassed me or made a move on me, I’m very uncomfortable being around him right now and don’t want any contact with him. My boss agreed, said she would speak to him, and though she didn’t have the authority to move me to another department, she would see to it that we wouldn’t be put on a team together, and kindly offered to adjust the schedule so he wouldn’t be in the office at times when I was there.

I’ve tried to handle this whole mess as discreetly as I can, but today I lost it. He walked into the break room while I was in there, and I basically yelled at him in front of everyone there, saying I’m not his wife and to stop telling people we’re married. I know this was not the most mature way to handle the situation, but I was at my wit’s end. What to do?

I wrote back to this letter-writer and asked what the lying coworker did after she yelled at him. Her response:

I think he was in shock, because he said nothing but immediately left the room. However, there was definitely a palpable tension between me and my colleagues who had witnessed the whole thing. As I said before, I didn’t want to cause a scene or embarrass him publicly … unfortunately, I was “in the moment” and I let my emotions get the best of me. I fear there can be no good resolution to this situation. Either I’ve just exposed him as a liar to my coworkers, or they think I’m the one lying, since he’d apparently been telling people we were married for quite some time. Since I can’t transfer departments, I’m entertaining the idea of putting in my two weeks, but I’m still emotionally reeling from what happened and I don’t want to do anything impulsive or make the situation worse.

Don’t quit your job! You are in the right and he was in the wrong. It’s understandable that you lost it on someone who did something so weird and violating and apparently has not attempted to make it right in any way.

Ideally, of course, you would never lose your cool at work or cause a scene. But he’s the one who did something wrong here, and getting called out on it publicly is a natural consequence of that. He should be exposed as a liar to your coworkers — not as punishment, but because that’s the necessary resolution after he chose to lie about you.

And what the hell is wrong with your coworker, doing something like this? He told people you were married?! Because he thought you weren’t coming back and so he’d get away with it? That’s not normal behavior. There’s no reason to feel that he should get to walk around shame-free while you feel you have to perfectly manage your emotions around him.

You said you felt a palpable tension from your coworkers during the encounter in the break room, but that doesn’t mean they were thinking, “Jane has lost her mind!” The most likely case is that they assumed you were telling the truth about not being married to this guy (why would you yell at your husband that you weren’t his wife?) and the tension was “whoa, something is going down and we are caught off-guard and don’t know how to react” and probably also “Derek lied about being married to Jane? Holy shit.”

I think you’ll feel much better if you go and talk to the coworkers who were there. Say something like, “I want to apologize for losing my cool in the break room in front of you. When I returned from my leave of absence dealing with a family issue, I found out that Derek had been telling people we were married. We have never had any involvement at all, so this was a really bizarre thing for him to do. It has felt pretty violating and I was at my wit’s end. I’ve spoken with (boss) about it and I wanted to explain to you too since you witnessed that.”

But truly, when someone does something like this to you, you don’t need to worry about protecting him from embarrassment. He should be embarrassed.

my coworker told everyone we’re married … we’re not even dating was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

We often think of working from home as a perk (you can work in sweats! with a cat in your lap!), but with so many people switching to remote work because of Covid, lots of them have discovered they don’t much like it.

Part of that is because of the circumstances, of course: we’re in the middle of a highly stressful crisis with no timeline for its end, and lots of people are trying to juggle child care along with work. But some of it is that people just aren’t liking working from home full-time as much as they thought they would.

Do you miss your office? Are you surprised by your reaction to working from home? Are you sick of working in your kitchen and overhearing all your spouse’s calls? Let’s discuss the dark side of working from home in the comments.

do you miss your office? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s spooky season, and these candy corn Jello shots are perfect for a Halloween party or scary movie night.

And, you can make these candy corn Jello shots the night before (always a plus in my book!).

I used orange Jello, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla vodka to give these shots a yummy orange cream flavor. They’re delicious and sweet.

Ingredients:

• Orange Jello
• Unflavored Gelatin
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Water
• Vanilla Vodka
• Yellow Food Coloring

How to Make Candy Corn Jello Shots:

Pour 1 cup of water into a small saucepan and pour 2 packets of unflavored gelatin into the water. Warm the water and gelatin over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until all the gelatin has dissolved (about 5 minutes).

Remove pan from the heat and add 1/2 your can of condensed milk to the mixture. Stir until the ingredients combine.

Add 2/3 cup of vanilla vodka. Cover and set aside half of your milk mixture. You will need to use it for the last layer.

Evenly distribute the first half of your mixture into 20 disposable shot glasses, filling them about 1/3 full. Refrigerate until firm (30-40 minutes).

How Long Does It Take for the Layers to Set?

Each layer will take around 30-40 minutes to set. Be sure to wait until each one is fully set before adding the next. Then, allow the finished Jello shots to chill for two hours.

When the first layer is firm, pour 1 cup of water into your saucepan and add another packet of gelatin to make your middle layer.

Warm the water until the gelatin dissolves, remove from the heat, and stir in the box of orange Jello until it dissolves. Then, add 1/3 cup vanilla vodka.

Evenly distribute the orange layer on top of white layer and refrigerate until chilled.

When your orange layer is solid, retrieve the second half of the milk mixture (that you set aside) and add in a few drops of yellow food coloring.

Distribute your yellow layer on top of the orange layer and put it back into the fridge until it sets.

Whoa!! These guys are looking authentic! Once all your layers are set, you are ready to serve your candy corn creations.

These candy corn Jello shots are sure to be a hit at your next Halloween or fall party. You can even serve them on a spooky black tray with Halloween cupcakes. Cheers!

P.S. Looking for more Halloween treats? Check out …

• Halloween Punch Bowl
• Easy No-Bake Truffles
• Edible Chocolate Pumpkin Bowls

“My relationship with the entire world in this moment depends entirely on the relationship I have with myself.“
– Paul Ferrini

Wish I would have realized this in my 20s. I took this from a talk Paul Ferrini gave in 2013. You can watch it here.

Grab a beverage and dive in.

(via)

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

I was interviewing recently via Zoom for a remote role and the woman interviewing me (who is only a few months in at this company herself) had such a nice headset that I said something like, “Wow, that’s a great headset. I need to look into getting one myself with this new normal.” She replied very casually, “Oh yeah, it’s nice, I got the company to purchase it for me for this role and it’s been a lifesaver.” This got me thinking about what kinds of things one should be asking and negotiating for when it comes to remote work, especially when you’re not yet sure of company policies and culture like you would be if you had already worked there prior to going remote.

In my situation, I’ll be setting up a home office for the first time. I’ve been in outside sales for over a decade and while we “worked from home” in many respects, we really worked from our cars and cafes and had an office to go to for any office supplies or printing. I do have my own printer, but I know I’ll be needing a better chair, plus there’s the cost of wifi, the cost of heating my home all day in winter (northern climate here), etc. I don’t want to nickel and dime an employer and know that remote work, even if necessary and required right now, is still a perk in many ways, and with those perks comes the cost of doing business on my end.

I guess I’m looking for 1) what would be smart and standard to ask for, 2) what would be ludicrous and out of touch, and 3) when to broach those topics in the interview process. Maybe also from the commenters some unexpected things that either they wish they would have asked for and/or are very glad to have.

In theory, your employer should pay for or provide any equipment you need for work (computer, printer, paper, etc.), as well as cover any extra expenses you’re incurring by working from home (like upgraded internet access). But what the details of that look like vary greatly: Some companies will pay for desk chairs, but some won’t (even though they’d pay for them in the office). Some will pay for internet access but others expect you to have it as a condition of being able to work from home. Some balance it against the savings you’re presumably getting from not having to commute (figuring, for example, that any increase in electricity is balanced out by saving on gas or transportation). There’s no one answer, making this a good one to throw out to readers.

So, readers who are working remotely, what have you asked for and received? What have you asked for and not received?

what is your company providing if you’re working from home? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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You have made a habit of wearing sunscreen daily, you have figured out which filters work best for your skin type and you know how much exactly you need to cover your face and neck (if not have a read here), and now on top of that you are told you need to reapply regularly? Even over the full face of makeup you wear to the office?

 

 

How exactly are you supposed to do that if taking everything off and starting again from scratch isn’t an option? And I get you, I wouldn’t do that multiple times a day either. So here are five different ways to make that work, depending on your skin type, your personal preference and the amount of makeup you are wearing.

 

 

You need to know this before you start to reapply sunscreen over makeup

1. The ways shown here are meant to touch up your sunscreen throughout a regular workday. They are not meant to protect you when you are spending time at the beach or hiking – if you do that, you really need to apply a thick layer of waterproof sunscreen, no matter how uncomfortable.
   I sincerely hope though you refrain from wearing a heavy layer of foundation for those activities anyway.
2. You need to make sure that your first layer of sun protection, the one you apply in the mornings, offers good protection. Use a high protection factor (SPF 50 ideally, but at least SPF 30), reach for broad spectrum so you get UVA protection (read more about that here) and make sure you apply enough of it (read here how much that is)!
   This first layer determines how well your protection will be throughout the day – you can’t build a strong wall on a faulty foundation.
3. Reapplying sunscreen, which is meant to be a film former, on top of the sweat, makeup and dirt already accumulated on your face will increase the risk of breakouts and clogged pores.
   But breakouts don’t happen within a few hours, so as long as you make sure you have a  good cleansing routine in place in the evenings, you will reduce that risk.
   I have shared my thoughts on Double Cleansing here, but the sweaty summer months when I reapply sunscreen over makeup several times a day is when I actually do recommend it.

 

With that out of the way, here are five different ways to reapply your sunscreen over makeup, listed from my least favorite to the best one I found.

 

 

For those that only wear a light base

This one actually feels a little like cheating, but as it is the one I use most frequently, I knew I needed to include it.

In the summertime, I go for a light base, think powder foundation, BB Cream, just something to even out my skin tone a little. Does that conceal all my imperfections and make my skin look flawless? No, but I have grown into my skin enough to not be bothered by that.

Well, most of these lighter bases tend to lose some coverage after around 4 hours, so that is the perfect opportunity to touch up.

Before you do that though, reach for a lightweight and hydrating sunscreen (my current favorite one being the Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Rich SPF 50+ PA++++, as it feels more like a moisturizer than a sun cream) and just dab that all over your face. Wait for it to sink in, apply your powder foundation/ BB Cream/ Concealer on top and maybe add back in a little bit of blush (I keep this one in my makeup bag) – You are done!

 

 

Sunscreen sprays for the face

Sunscreen sprays aren’t new, and I have used quite a few different ones in the past, like this one from Bioderma Hydrabio Eau de Soin SPF 30 Anti-UV Mist or the pixi Sun Mist SPF 30. Newer ones by Kate Sommerville for example work as makeup setting sprays with integrated sun protection, making them even better for reapplying over makeup.

Sunscreen sprays are among the most convenient options I have found, as they don’t spill in your bag, disrupt your makeup the least and usually feel refreshing, but they have a few downsides that you need to be aware of:

• You need to make sure that the spray actually reaches your face, which is more difficult, the finer the mist is. Spraying them with an extended arm, maybe even outside where there is wind means only a fraction will actually go where it is needed – onto your face. A less fine mist though (leaving out the less comfortable feel they have) has a tendency to apply blobs of sunscreen to your face rather than an even layer, which means you get an uneven layer of protection.
• Many of them contain alcohol to make them light enough to spritz, which can sting your eyes when sprayed directly. Close them when you mist your face and also make sure you do not inhale – sunscreen is not meant to be breathed in!
  So actually the best way to apply them would be to spritz a good amount into your hands and then pat that on your face – which then is probably the same as applying a cream or lotion.
• To get the promised sun protection factor, you need to apply a lot. So to actually get a good amount of protection like the SPF 30 they claim on the bottle, you would really need to drench your face with them. Always remember: They are great for touchups, but not for basic protection!

Don’t let that put you off though, if it is convenience you are after, they are amazing! I do reach for them myself, especially when I am out and about and pressed for time.

 

Powder sunscreens for the face

These are perfect for those that like powder foundations and probably more for my fellow oily girls than for those with dry skin.

Again: they are very convenient, you have control over where you apply them, much better than you have with sprays and, if you go for one of the tinted options, provide coverage and shine control as well as renewed sun protection.

My first (and so far only) experience with sunscreen powders though was pretty disappointing. I found a pot of the ISDIN sunscreen powder in my mother’s stash, nicked it and was pretty disappointed with the results. Probably because it is tinted and, given that my mother is about two shades darker than me, quite noticeable on my skin if I apply a generous amount, and of course a generous amount is needed for reasonable protection.

Just like with sunscreen sprays for the face you need to make sure that you don’t inhale the powder particles, should there be a lot of kickback.

It is an option that I would love to explore further, so I have added a few with great reviews for you (and me) to try underneath!

 

 

Sunscreen cushions

I am fairly new to Korean Beauty, so these weren’t on my radar for the longest time, but researching for this article was the perfect opportunity to finally purchase one. (My only other cushion experience was with the Dior Diorskin Perfect Cushion Foundation that I reviewed here back in 2017)

Sunscreen cushions sound perfect: As convenient as a powder would be, suitable for all skin types (even dry ones that don’t get along with powder) and perfect to ensure even coverage.

They are available both in tinted and clear, but while I love the idea of the clear ones, most of them have a noticeable white cast, which stems from two things: First, they usually use mineral filters only (read more about the different filters here), which due to their structure are much more likely to let you look way paler than you are. And second, many of the companies creating them still buy into the idea that lighter skin is more beautiful, so instead of trying to formulate a way around that, they name it as benefit in their advertising.

With the tinted ones of course there is the need to find one that matches your skin – most of them are pretty sheer in coverage in the beginning, but as you again need a reasonable amount to come close to the protection on the label, you will need to build them up quite a bit.

The one I purchased for testing this method is the dear klairs Mochi BB Cushion Pact SPF 40 PA++ (read more about the meaning of the PA rating here) and I really enjoy it for touchups before I go out for lunch or meet someone, basically whenever I want to look fresh and put together. Due to the mineral filters it contains it doesn’t exactly feel lightweight on my skin, but that might just be this particular product.

 

The best way to reapply sunscreen over a full face of makeup – if you ask me

I will not take credit for this one, as I have seen it both on YouTube and Instagram for a long time, but it is a game changer if you wear a heavy base. Maybe you want to cover up your acne, maybe you are required a heavy base due to your job, whatever the reason, I urge you to give it a try.

All you need is an old fashioned makeup sponge or maybe a cushion (not a beautyblender, as they tend to absorb too much product) and your regular sunscreen, of which you apply a generous amount on the back of your hand and then dab (not drag!) it across your face. That will work best with a sunscreen that is hydrating and does not leave a white cast.

Work in sections, make sure to dab (that is crucial to not smear the foundation) and maybe do several thinner layers rather than a heavy one. That way you not only get an even layer of protection, you also diffuse and refresh the makeup underneath. Seriously, don’t dismiss it until you tried it, your makeup might even look better than it did before!

You probably need to touch up your blush and/or bronzer afterwards, but that is a small price to pay for a perfect looking base with renewed sun protection, don’t you think?

 

 

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One of my favorite ways to enjoy summertime flowers is candied on top of desserts. Sure, flowers are pretty in a vase, but why just look at them when you could cover them in sugar and eat them instead? Most flowers have a delicate, subtle flavor when candied and the sugar gives them a yummy crunch. They look elegant on cupcakes, tarts, pavlovas and just about any other dessert, and they’re surprisingly easy to make, too!More flowers are edible than you might realize—just make sure your flowers are grown without pesticides so they’re safe to eat. You can grow your own from seeds, ask around for fresh flowers at farmers markets, check with local nurseries for organically grown flower starts, or order them online. I used rose petals, nasturtiums, white jasmine, pansies, begonia buds and micro sun daisies here. Chamomile, dianthus, borage and dahlias are also edible, as well as herb and vegetable flowers, like squash blossoms.All you need to candy the flowers is a small amount of egg white and superfine (also known as caster sugar). I like using pasteurized egg whites from a carton, but you can also use pasteurized dried egg whites or whisk fresh egg whites in a bowl over an inch of simmering water until they reach 140º to kill bacteria. Use a small brush to coat the flower petals in whisked egg white, then brush off as much excess as possible so the flowers hold their shape as they dry. If the egg white is too thick to spread, whisk in a little water.Using completely dry fingers, sprinkle the flowers with sugar until covered, then turn them over and gently tap to remove excess sugar.Set the flowers on parchment paper until completely dry, which takes 12-24 hours. Candied whole flowers will last several days in a sealed container at room temperature, and candied petals can last for months. So if you’re looking for a new and tasty way to enjoy your summer blooms, I hope you give candied flowers a try! xo Kayleigh

Credits // Author and Photography: Kayleigh Kosmas. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

A reader writes:

I am part of the HR department at my workplace, and we hired “Andre” a few months ago as a part of our student group. He’s only 18, but he’s been a hard worker and always takes initiative around the office. I was part of Andre’s interview panel, so I’ve always been in contact with him and friendly with him since we brought him on board.

For the past month, Andre has been working in my section to help process a backlog of paperwork caused by COVID-19, so he spends a lot of time in my office where the only working scanner is. We started with small talk but learned that we share a lot of hobbies.

A week ago, a cafe near our office opened back up (take-out only), and when I told Andre about it, he suggested we go there for break. I’ve had coffee with my other coworkers before. He offered to pay, and after we chatted at a park bench by the cafe, he offered a hand to help me up from the bench and held my upper arm until we’d left the park. Since then, we’ve felt more comfortable making physical contact, but it’s been nothing inappropriate. It’s usually just a poke or bump on the shoulder or brushing up against each other in the hall.

I bring this up because one of my coworkers, “Jane,” confided in me that she’s concerned about how Andre and I interact. She said that she saw us on that outing, and she confessed that she overheard a short conversation we had while Andre was replacing toner. Andre was jamming the cartridge in aggressively, so I said, “Damn, I hope you don’t treat your dates like that.” He had replied, “Only if they ask for it.” She has also heard Andre tell me on a separate occasion, “If only I could get a girl with legs like yours, I’d be in business.”

Jane thinks this could result in sexual harassment complaints, but that wouldn’t make any sense. We thought we were alone, and since we’ve been getting more connected at work, we’ve been talking in friendly innuendo like that. Andre has never shown any discomfort when we share jokes like these, especially when he initiates them, and we never do so in front of others to make others feel uncomfortable. Nobody’s complaining. Jane, however, thinks this is unbecoming of a 40something woman like myself and could look very bad for our company if our private interactions were made public.

Jane says they’re not as private as I think and everyone else can feel the “sexual tension” between us, and she said that people sometimes refer to us as “work spouses.” I admit that interacting with Andre makes me feel more attractive than I have in years, but it’s not relevant. Jane also asked if my husband knows about Andre, but my husband doesn’t need to know about Andre since I’ve never cheated on him and never would.

Jane doesn’t seem to understand more nuanced social interactions like flirting can be harmless and common in office settings, and based on the questions above, she seems to believe it’s okay to ask about my private life because of this. Is there a tactful way I can explain to her that she shouldn’t try to police her coworkers’ social interactions, especially if they’re not meant to be public?

Whoa, no.

You need to stop flirting with Andre. Stop brushing against him in the hallway (!), stop trading sexually charged jokes and compliments, stop the whole thing.

You are in HR. He is an 18-year-old student employee. You cannot flirt with or trade sexual innuendo with a student employee.

Yes, this could be sexual harassment. It could be sexual harassment of Andre if he ever starts to feel uncomfortable or like his security in his job depends on continuing the flirtation (and just because someone seems comfortable with this kind of contact at first, that doesn’t mean they’ll continue to feel comfortable with it). It could also be a legal liability if others are forced to overhear obvious sexual remarks between the two of you (that toner comment? come on — I guarantee you that grossed out anyone who overheard).

And yes, potential harassment issues aside, this will absolutely affect the way others think of you. At a minimum, you’ll look like you have terrible judgment, and if this continues people will suspect you of more than that.

Doing this with any colleague would be inappropriate. Doing it with an 18-year-old is even more problematic. He’s on a whole different plane of maturity (and he’s not accountable in nearly the same way you are for knowing what is and isn’t acceptable at work).

Also, you’re in HR! I hope that means you’re doing benefits administration or comp analysis or similar — because if you do anything related to legal compliance or investigations or employee counseling, you’re torpedoing your credibility and trustworthiness in your job as well. You may have already forfeited your ability to be seen as fair or impartial if someone needs to report harassment or other inappropriate behavior.

If you do work in those areas of HR, your judgment here — and especially your response after a colleague pointed out the problems — is indicative of some serious deficiencies in your understanding of foundational concepts in your field, and I’d urge you to do some serious soul-searching about what’s required to make your behavior and judgment line up with what’s needed in that work. This isn’t “I occasionally have do some data entry for my job and I’m not great at it.” This is “I violate the rules I am charged with enforcing, don’t realize when I’m doing it, and may harm others who rely on me to keep their workspace safe and legal.” It’s soul-searching, “am I in the right field?” territory.

If you do that soul-searching and come out of it with an understanding of why all of this is a problem and a resolve to do better, you should be able to move forward (although you’ll need to do some reputation repair at work, as well as righting things with Andre). But you have to do that work.

Also … you didn’t write in asking for marriage advice, but the relevant question there isn’t whether your husband “needs” to know about Andre. It’s whether you’d be comfortable if he did.

my coworker told me to stop flirting with a student employee was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker demands my attention when I’m busy

I work with a woman who is senior to me in title. There are several of us and we each work for different bosses, but we all have the same grandboss. She is awesome when it comes to overall morale in the workplace. However, my issue is how much attention I have to give her when she wants to talk about her personal life.

Every time she wants to share her latest story about herself to the group, she notices I am not giving her any attention. She asks me from across the room in front of the others if I’m listening to her. I always want to ask her if it’s work-related, but I wisely don’t. Instead, I apologize, listen, and give the expected compliments or sympathies, and then go back to my work. Granted, her stories are only about 10-15 minutes and she only does this every few days or so.

I know it’s all part of the team-bonding experience in the workplace. But I happen to have a boss who likes to pile work on me. I just can’t help but feel resentment that she has the time to tell stories when I wish I could take those minutes back to take breaks (which I never take but know I should). How can I politely and professionally get out of having to listen to her talk about non-work issues?

When she asks you from across the room if you’re listening to her, be honest! You can cheerfully say, “Nope, sorry, I’m right in the middle of something I can’t stop” or “No, sorry, I’m on a deadline, continue without me!”

If she suggests she’ll hold off on the story until you’re finished, you can say, “Don’t wait on me — I’m pretty buried today.”

2. Performance reviews during COVID

After a rough patch at the beginning of COVID, my company seems to be on a major upswing. My CEO just announced that we’re moving forward with reviews and we can all expect some nominal raises by October. There are two things I’m trying to figure out how to address:

• COVID. Like almost everyone else, I haven’t been nearly as productive in lockdown.

• My mental health. Right after reviews last year, I had a serious depressive episode that landed me in the hospital. As much as I’d like to say this didn’t impact my performance, it obviously did. I struggled to keep my head above water and even fainted mid-meeting due to some medication issues. I’ve also been taking half days 2-3 times a month for frequent doctor and therapy appointments. My manager has some knowledge of what’s going on and has helped me prioritize and manage my workload, but for the most part I’ve kept the severity of the issue to myself.

For the last year+, it’s been a struggle to just stay alive and employed. I don’t feel like I’ve made any remarkable improvements or contributions and I honestly don’t feel like I’m capable of providing a self-assessment that isn’t overly self-critical.

My therapist pointed out that I have been dealing with an actual life-threatening illness the last year and I should cut myself some slack for that AND COVID-related issues that everyone is dealing with. But I was raised to believe that personal life absolutely does not impact work-life and that my mental health is a part of that (and a personal failing). What do you advise?

The basic framing you want is, “Due to the challenges caused by the pandemic and some concurrent health issues, my main goal for this period has been to keep things running smoothly, but not to innovate or add major new initiatives.”

Because that’s true! So say that explicitly right up-front, and then assess yourself accordingly. You’re not evaluating yourself against the standards of previous years, but against what’s been reasonable for this specific period with these specific circumstances. (Your manager should take the same approach if she’s at all reasonable. If she’s not reasonable, this will at least open a conversation about what each of you considers realistic right now.)

And your mental health impacting work is no more a personal failing than cancer treatment impacting work would be (which is to say, it’s not one). Be as matter-of-fact about it as you would about any other health issue.

3. My coworkers want the creative projects we should outsource

My team, the communications department, is 15 people. We all are pretty busy, a bit over the line for what is reasonable to expect from a team of this size. We all have some level of creative tasks, but three colleagues have a role that is full creative (think design, photography, video, etc.). We also have the budget to outsource some tasks, which is lucky as the appetite for these full-creative tasks is huge and growing.

All three of my full-creative colleagues approached our boss (and mentioned the issue for the whole team) with the following problem: they feel that when we outsource the larger creative productions (say, producing a video), they are deprived of professional opportunities to grow and take on large projects. This is fair as far as that goes, but we need them full-time for the day-to-day work (take photo of X event and edit it so social media can publish in less than an hour) and these smaller tasks cannot be outsourced reasonably.

I understand their frustration, but when they want to take on a larger project, they often have unrealistic expectations on how much time they could devote to it. Often they’d say: I need a month just doing this. But that is just not feasible, as there is always something else to do. They constantly complain they have too much on their plates as it is (which, true – so do we all).

We already outsource all we can, so it’s not realistic for other team members to take on more (and the rest of us are not graphic designers, etc.). My boss tends to give in to them, which means we get less stuff done (which I know is my boss’s decision) but with more complaining about how the creatives are overwhelmed. Also we risk not getting the budget for this kind of expense if we don’t use it — we have one of these budget systems where saving money results in less budget for the next year.

On my bad days, I am frustrated by this. I would love to have a month blocked off for some of my projects, but it’s not going to happen and in the end I am paid to do what my boss tells me to do. How can we resolve this?

I don’t know that you can, or that you need to. Ultimately this stuff is your boss’ call. You can sit down with him and make the case for a different approach, using some recent concrete examples of problems the current approach has caused. And you can share your concern that not using the outsourcing budget means it’ll go away, putting all of you in a bind in future years. But from there, it’s up to him.

He might be giving into your colleagues because he’s a pushover, but he might be giving into them for more well-thought-out reasons that you’re not privy to. He might know he’ll lose your best people if they don’t get a couple of these projects each year. Maybe they came on board with the understanding they’d get to do this kind of work. Or not! But ultimately it’s his decision. You can make the case for doing it differently, but after that you’ve got to shrug it off as not your call.

4. Indeed’s “job assessments” on resumes

I wondered if you’ve seen Indeed’s job assessment “feature.” I was reviewing a candidate’s resume today and noticed that it contained a hyperlink. The link was in a section entitled Medical Receptionist Skills and purported to be some kind of certificate indicating that the candidate was highly proficient.

After checking to see that the link actually went to Indeed, I opened it and discovered that the candidate had completed a 16-minute assessment on medical reception tasks.

I find this very odd and I’m not sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, it’s clear that the candidate took this assessment in response to our job ad, so I suppose it counts as preparing for the role and interview. However, I have no idea what was actually assessed, and the idea that a candidate can show “high proficiency” in 16 minutes for a job that takes nine months of training for most workers is laughable. What do you think? Endearing sign of preparation or silly gimmick?

Silly gimmick. It’s not the job seeker’s fault; it’s Indeed’s fault for promoting this to job seekers as something employers will care about. Many, many job seekers assume that if a big job board like Indeed tells them action X will be helpful, it must be true. Unfortunately a ton of the time it’s not (see also: LinkedIn skill endorsements).

5. I don’t know which job my interview is for

I recently applied for two different jobs at the same company. I’m really eager to work with them in any capacity. Yesterday I got a call to schedule a video interview. When I hung up the phone, I realized I didn’t know what job I was interviewing for. I have a feeling which one it is because I can see which application was viewed first on Indeed, but I can’t be 100% sure. Since I’m open to working any position that they think would be a good fit for me, is it okay to go into the interview without confirming which job we are talking about? It feels awkward and clunky to go back now and ask.

Go back and ask, because if you don’t know which one you’re interviewing for, you won’t be able to prepare as effectively. And it might not even become clear at the start of the call, and if you have to ask at that point it’ll be a lot more awkward than just asking now. Contact the person who scheduled the interview (email is best if you have their email) and say, “After we spoke I realized I didn’t know if this interview is for the X job or the Y job, since I applied for both. Can you let me know which one we’ll be speaking about on Monday?”

coworker demands my attention when I’m busy, performance reviews during COVID, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. A very amusing but penniless family lives in a crumbling castle in 1930s England, but everything changes when two rich American brothers become their new landlords. It’s delightfully written. How had I never read this before? I now love it with all my heart.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

weekend open thread – July 18-19, 2020 was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

I work from home full time (including pre-coronavirus) and am typically very busy and focused all day while I’m working. I have a one-year-old son who is normally in daycare full time, but of course, he is now home with me. My husband is also working from home, but he is a psychiatrist so is seeing patients virtually most of the week from 9-5 and just really can’t have a toddler in the room or be distracted at all while doing that.

So childcare during the day primarily falls to me. And Lord help me, I cannot work while taking care of my toddler. I mean I try, but nothing really gets done. My boss and coworkers are aware of my situation and are generally understanding. They do still attempt to put the same amount of things on my plate that they used to, but when I push back or gently let them know that no, I cannot meet that deadline, they have been understanding although they might be frustrated. I am actually the only one at my company (about 20-30 people) with little kids (some have no kids, and some have teenagers or adult children), so even though the ones with teenagers will say “yeah I know, it’s crazy, I get it,” I feel like they don’t really get it.

One of my coworkers, when I first let her know about my situation, said “Well, you can work at night.” (She is a very nice person and was not trying to be rude in any way). And the truth is, my son goes to bed at 6pm and is a very good sleeper. And on weekends my husband has no patients so technically I could work all evenings and weekends to get in my 40+ hours/week that I usually work. But…I would be so miserable. I am already so stressed out about everything going on in the world and am losing my mind. I really cherish the few moments I have to just relax with my husband in the evening or take a long walk with my family on a Saturday. But when I assure my manager and my coworkers that I am doing the best that I can, is that honest if I am still retaining a bit of free time? I do still work some evenings and weekends, but not all, and I am still trying to get 8 hours of sleep every night.

I am still getting my full salary, and given that so many people are not right now, I worry that my willingness to accept full pay for part time work (in addition to the money I’m saving from not paying for daycare) is ethically problematic. But the alternative I fear would wreak such havoc on my mental health.

Readers — thoughts?

(One quick one from me: Can your husband block out a couple of hours a day to not have patients so you have some uninterrupted time every workday? He could even potentially shift some those appointments to the evening after your son is asleep. I’m sure that’s not ideal for his schedule, but this isn’t ideal for yours either — and right now he’s taking none of the burden of the situation while you’re taking all of it, and that’s not right.)

what are my obligations to my team when I’m also caring for a toddler full-time? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

One of the biggest things lost in remote work is chance meetings. These are very important, but hard to quantify. If you measure productivity on individual projects, everything will seem fine. Yet when you read stories of how things happened, chance meetings were often crucial.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 10, 2020

I am feeling this Tweet (and the responses) on the loss of chance meetings by going remote. I personally thrive on the unstructured, serendipitous meetings. Trying to figure out how to create them in a remote context, some folks seem to believe it’s possible.

The term “ally” can be useful as a way to show support to others, but the downside is that it gives people who are not directly affected by an injustice another way to turn the conversation back to themselves. You can read a more nuanced explanation here. Nonetheless, ally is the word we have, so it’s the one we’ll…

Read more...

Remember the letter from the person whose work history had been stolen by someone using her same name (#3 at the link)? Someone was using her references, claiming to be her. Here’s the update.

A big thanks to all the readers in the comments. You guys came with such fantastic suggestions. I contacted a lawyer as Alison recommended (my brother-in-law, who specializes in real estate law but still) and he was helpful in getting me to understand my rights.

As per the reader suggestions, I did the following: froze and checked my credit. There wasn’t anything suspicious there, but fake-me might have had more devious plans. I also added my middle name to my LinkedIn. My wife likes to joke that my name sounds like a made up alias because it’s so average, but I can at least hope that fake-me isn’t also “Jennifer Ann Johnson.” I also added a new picture, and we can hope that helps.

I contacted my previous boss, who is my usual go-to reference, and asked him if anyone had contacted him about me recently. In the past six months, he had been contacted as a reference eleven times. Only one of these was actually for me, as part of the job offer I didn’t accept. The only people working there were me (and now my replacement), my old boss and a few support staff, so I’m sure he knew about all contacts. He admitted he thought it was strange I only reached out once when he had been contacted multiple times, but assumed that the time I informed him I was listing him as a reference was more a blanket request. The positions he was contacted about were also very junior to my current role, which he also found odd but never asked me about. I asked him to inform me if anyone else tries to verify my employment and explained what was happening.

I also spoke to my current boss, who found the whole thing disturbing/a bit funny. He isn’t a bad guy, and he told me that if I want to leave he understands but his initial confrontational response was because he was worried that I was going to leave in the middle of a huge project we were working on, something I would never do. We spoke to HR together, and they now require the last 4 digits of the SSN to verify employment, which I think is a good step.

I still don’t know who the other Jennifer Johnson is, and it’s so creepy that she almost got a job using my resume. The only reason I can think of is that my name is very common and most people think my job must be very easy (it’s not). I work in corporate communications consulting on and creating social media campaigns, which people assume is just tweeting or posting on Instagram all day. I get almost daily LinkedIn requests from influencers who are all trying to “break into the industry.” I think the other me just assumed she would do an easy job for a lot of pay. I’ve also selectively reached out to my network and shared the story with them, so they’re on the alert.

I contacted the other company who was verifying employment and explained everything, and they still wouldn’t release the resume, but indicated that they would not offer this person a job.

Work is going fine, and I’ve actually paused the job search for now because I was given a mini-promotion including a big pay raise and a lot more responsibilities. My boss told me that after this incident he realized how invaluable I am and how much he wanted to keep me! I guess that’s one good thing to come out of it. Enough time has passed that it’s become a bit of an office joke. Whenever I mess something up we all blame “Jennifer 2.” I still think it’s creepy, but hopefully I’ve made it harder for her in future.

update: someone with my name has stolen my work history was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Video conferences are far from the most exciting part of a work day — but one animal shelter is about to change that.

A new program started by Richmond Animal Care & Control (RACC) allows individuals, companies and schools from all over the country to invite a homeless dog, cat or kitten to participate in their virtual meetings — and the results couldn't be cuter.

Credit: RACC

“We were just thinking of something we could do that would make people smile,” Christie Chipps Peters, director of RACC, told The Dodo. “We are surrounded by animals every day, and we really do understand the love and comfort that comes from them.”

“I think it’s such a wonderful thing to be able to share with other people in such a trying time right now,” she added.

Credit: RACC

Including a furry “coworker” is almost as simple as letting your cat stroll across your keyboard. To get started, simply email the shelter and specify the time and date of your meeting and what type of animal you would like to host. You can request a specific animal, or just give a few details about the kind of participant you’re looking for.

“If they want crazy, we can do something outside and they can watch them fly past the camera," Peters said. "But if they want someone who will sit and be quiet, then we have a few animals with really calm temperaments.”

Credit: RACC

The first shelter dog to test-drive the program was a sweet pittie named Catherine Middleton Duchess of Cambridge, who met with the Richmond-based company Altria. During the call on Monday, she proved to be a model employee.

“She’s incredibly quiet and calm, and she likes to sit in your lap,” Peters said. “She’s very professional — she’s taking her job very seriously.”

Credit: RACC

For some of the smaller participants, shelter employees got creative with their Zoom backgrounds. The kittens now have their very own mock-office, complete with a tiny desk, coffee cup and to-do list.  

And the kittens' schedule is filling up fast.

Credit: RACC

At the moment, only pets housed in the shelter are participating in the program, but as interest grows, the shelter hopes to include dogs and cats currently in foster care as well.

And these sweet additions will make any meeting one that you won’t soon forget.

Credit: RACC

“It’s nothing more than to help people smile, to make people think about adopting from our shelter and to get some extra face time with pets here that need forever homes,” Peters said. “And how wonderful if someone falls in love with a shelter pet during a work meeting.”

Meet service dog Ariel and her best friend Hadley Jo — an adorable pair who know life is better when they're together.

And everyone who meets them agrees.

Credit: Heather DeVore Lange

The little girl and her pup are inseparable pals, spending their days exchanging smiles for licks and pets for a wagging tail. But their sweet relationship goes beyond just friendship.

Hadley Jo has special needs, and her faithful dog helps her manage them. 

"Ariel is Hadley Jo’s seizure alert service dog," Heather DeVore Lange, Hadley Jo's mom, told The Dodo. "Ariel saves my daughter’s life by alerting us before a seizure happens, allowing us to administer rescue medication in less than two minutes. My goal is to provide my daughter an independent life as much as possible and Ariel helps to make that happen."

Given that important role, wherever Hadley Jo goes, Ariel is sure to follow — and that includes joining her at school.

Credit: Heather DeVore Lange

Ariel is sure to stay by Hadley Jo's side as she goes about her school day, accompanying her to class and resting nearby as she studies and learns.

But though Ariel isn't quite like the other students in class, seeing how important she is to Hadley Jo, they've embraced the pup as one of their own.

And it shows.

Credit: Heather DeVore Lange

When it came time to put together the yearbook, Ariel was invited to be included, too — given a place alongside the little girl for whom she makes all the difference in the world.

Credit: Heather DeVore Lange

For Hadley Jo's mom, seeing Ariel be included in that precious memento was deeply moving.

"I have to admit I teared up," DeVore Lange said. "The inclusiveness and acceptance of my daughter and her service dog means the world to me. It is beyond comforting to know that my daughter and her service dog have a home away from their home, at school, and that they are loved. They are accepted regardless of their differences."

Credit: Heather DeVore Lange

Just as Ariel makes life happier for Hadley Jo, together, the two of them have the same effect on everyone they meet.

Credit: Heather DeVore Lange

As Hadley Jo continues to grow and learn, Ariel will be by her side through it all — as both her best friend and lifesaving companion. Those who know them best wouldn't have it any other way.

"Hadley Jo likes to tell people, 'Ariel keeps me safe,'” DeVore Lange said. "Ariel goes everywhere Hadley Jo goes. We are so blessed as a family to have her."